You are on page 1of 21

This article was downloaded by: [b-on: Biblioteca do conhecimento online UL]

On: 26 June 2014, At: 06:56


Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Totalitarian Movements and Political
Religions
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftmp20
At the Roots of the New RightWing
Extremism in Portugal: The National
Action Movement (19851991)
Riccardo Marchi
a
a
Instituto de Cincias Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa , Portugal
Published online: 06 Aug 2010.
To cite this article: Riccardo Marchi (2010) At the Roots of the New RightWing Extremism in
Portugal: The National Action Movement (19851991), Totalitarian Movements and Political
Religions, 11:1, 47-66, DOI: 10.1080/14690764.2010.499670
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14690764.2010.499670
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
Content) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions,
Vol. 11, No. 1, 4766, March 2010
ISSN 1469-0764 Print/ISSN 1743-9647 Online/10/010047-20 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14690764.2010.499670
At the Roots of the New Right-Wing Extremism in
Portugal: The National Action Movement (1985-1991)
RICCARDO MARCHI*
Instituto de Cincias Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Taylor and Francis FTMP_A_499670.sgm 10.1080/14690764.2010.499670 Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 1469-0764 (print)/1743-9647 (online) Original Article 2010 Taylor & Francis 11 10000002010
ABSTRACT Since the mid-1980s, the Portuguese Radical Right has deeply changed its
political beliefs. The traditional radical right that emerged from the authoritarian regime
and was characterised by the multiracial and pluri-continental imperial myth has been
replaced by a new radical right showing an ethno-nationalist political identity. This
change was played, for the first time, by the Movimento de Aco Nacional [MAN,
National Action Movement]: a radical group founded in 1985. MAN introduced the polit-
ical speech and militancy typical of the more extreme European groupuscular rights in
Portugal, fusing both the ultra-nationalism of the old radical right and the neo-Nazi
racism of the skinhead subculture. The attention given to MANs growing activism by
Portuguese media and judicial authorities made it the most important radical right
movement in contemporary Portugal after the transition to democracy.
Introduction
Academic studies on the radical right of fascist or Nazi inspiration, which was
active in the second half of the twentieth century, focussed on the analysis of
political parties, encouraged by the defeated factions of 1945 and their heirs.
1
This
preference for the party model and its electoral action led to the marginalisation
of fringe political and social players, perceived to be of little interest within
national political systems. This had a real negative impact on the actual historical
and political dimension of the radical right in the post-war period, as at the time
this segment was represented particularly by the so-called groupuscule right
and disseminated through multiple variants both in Western Europe and the
United States, and, after the fall of communism, in Eastern Europe.
2
According to Roger Griffin who, in 1999, was the first to draw attention to the
importance of this phenomenon,
3
the groupuscularisation of the radical right is
no symptom of failure of post-war fascism, rather a mutation of fascism itself,
*Email: riccardo.marchi@ics.ul.pt
1
Roger Grifn, From Slime Mould to Rhizome: an Introduction to the Groupuscolar Right, Patterns
of Prejudice, 37/1 (2003), p.7.
2
Jeffrey M. Bale, National Revolutionary Groupuscules and the Resurgence of Left-wing Fascism: the
Case of Frances Nouvelle Rsistance, Patterns of Prejudice, 36/3 (2002), p.25.
3
Bonnie Burstow, Surviving and Thriving by Becoming More Groupuscular: the Case of the Heri-
tage Front, Patterns of Prejudice, 37/4 (2003), p.415.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

48 R. Marchi
dictated by the need to adjust to historical circumstances.
4
This is one of the two
strategic alternatives undertaken by the heirs of fascism following military defeat:
on the one hand, their option to adopt a party format with the objective of organ-
ising the nostalgic and seducing, again, the masses who had supported the
national revolutions of the 1920s and the 1930s;
5
on the other hand, to form small
elite and militant groups distant from the mass-based party stand and destined to
carry out ideological and subversive actions. Thus, the groupuscular system
became the most diffuse form of European neo-fascism (and not just that) in the
second post-war period
6
.
Griffin proposed the rhizome type model of the radical right to describe the
groupuscular dimension. This is a reticular structure formed by autonomous cells
not organised according to internal and external stiff hierarchies and devoid of a
single leader or a defined centre, rather polycentric and fluid at the extreme ends
and constantly changing. These characteristics set it well apart from any classic
political party format and bring it closer to counterculture movements.
7
These are, therefore, grouplets, with a limited number of militants and an
insignificant number of followers, incapable of exercising maximum influence
through some type of relationship with the main political players,
8
or through
any form of involvement in mainstream political culture, in some cases remaining
almost invisible as members of the civil society.
9
These features allowed the multiple grouplets to maintain strong internal
solidarity, create an efficient network of contacts, prepare and disseminate ideo-
logical propaganda swiftly and execute protest actions. On ideological grounds,
the groupuscular radical right merely concentrated on keeping unaltered the
nucleus of fascist identity, abandoning unnecessary, even counter-producing
appendages in the post-war political and cultural milieu, such as the cult of leader
or imperialist expansionism.
10
In terms of political action, this meant playing down the electoral tool and
denoted a marked preference for non-party instruments, such as publishers,
radical movements (sometimes internal trends within larger parties), interna-
tional relations networks with counterpart groups and underground radical
counterculture transmission channels, which were more appropriate to introduce
non-conventional ideas in the receptive surrounding scene.
11
This receptive milieu has been identified in the uncivil society, and can be
found in those segments of the civil society that are particularly sensitive to the
appeals of extra-parliamentary protest, anti-liberal ideologies and anti-system
policies;
12
this is a segment made up of persons who stand across the middle class
4
Grifn (note 1), p.49.
5
In Portugal and Spain, the heirs of the defeated fascist movements did not attempt to regain the
support of the masses that were orphaned of national revolutions. Instead, they focused on guarantee-
ing a space within their corresponding authoritarian regimes to mark their revolutionary whims with
regard other political families standing in the shadow of Salazar and Franco.
6
Grifn (note 1), pp.38 and 41.
7
Ibid., pp.304.
8
Ibid. p.45.
9
Roger Grifn, Guest Editors Introduction: the Incredible Shrinking ism: the Survival of Fascism in
the Post-fascist Era, Patterns of Prejudice, 36/3 (2002), p.4.
10
Ibid. p.7.
11
Bale (note 2), p.46.
12
Grifn (note 1), p.33.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 49
stripped of its social status, and the fringes of the new poor. These peoples only
form of income is provided by the welfare state (pensioners, long-term
unemployed, the disabled). They often have a low educational level and live in
the run-down outskirts of large cities or in declining areas.
13
This social milieu is more receptive to propaganda made both by parties and social
movements of the radical right and of the grouplets that form it. Regarding the latter,
their network and autonomous cell structure, which are ideologically syncretic,
eclectic and flexible from an organisational perspective, allowed the dissemination
of the radical message mostly amongst younger members, and enabled them to
remain invulnerable to the regimes repression.
14
Thanks to its autonomy and
absence of stiff hierarchies, the dismantling or self-dissolution of each cell does not
cause a domino effect and does not lead to the collapse of the entire network.
15
Chronologically speaking, these radical right movements assured their pres-
ence throughout the second post-war period and reached their mobilisation peak
at the end of the 1980s, with varying degrees of success. This depended on the
existence, within the same political context, of a stronger or weaker moderate
right with greater or smaller ability to legitimise the radicals and able, to a larger
or lesser extent, to keep traditional fractures active or ride the new differences,
seizing them from the radicals.
16
The same double strategy adopted by the national radical right can be found in
the young Portuguese democracy, as it remained active through the political parties
or radical small groups after the fall of the authoritarian regime in 25 April 1974.
Regarding attempts to organise political parties, the few studies on the
Portuguese radical right in the democratic period focused their attention on two
specific historical periods: the transition years, with some references made to the
1980s,
17
and from the turn of the millennium until the present.
18
In contrast, the present article focuses on the most important Portuguese
political player that was active in the groupuscular arena: the Movimento de
Aco Nacional [MAN, National Action Movement]. By resorting to archival
sources never used before, this paper analyses MANs historical path, its territorial
establishment and the characteristics of its followers and leaders, paying particular
attention to the political and ideological identity of the movement. The objective is
13
Hanspeter Kriesi, Movements of the Left, Movements of the Right: Putting the Mobilization of Two
New Types of Social Movements into Political Context, in Herbert Kitschelt, Peter Lange, Gary Marks
and John D. Stephens (eds), Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), pp.398423.
14
Grifn (note 1), p.46.
15
Grifn (note 9), p.5.
16
Kriesi (note 13), pp.4149.
17
Antnio Costa Pinto, The Radical Right in Contemporary Portugal, in Luciano Cheles, Ronnie
Ferguson and Michalina Vaughan (eds), The Far Right in Western and Eastern Europe (London: Long-
man, 1995), pp.10928; Antnio Costa Pinto, Dealing with the Legacy of Authoritarianism: Political
Purges and Radical Right Movements in Portugals Transition to Democracy 19741980s, in Stain
Larsen (ed.), Modern Europe after Fascism 19431980 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998),
pp.16791718; Antnio Costa Pinto, O legado do autoritarismo e a transio portuguesa para a
democracia, 19742004, in Manuel Loff, Maria da Conceio Meireles Pereira (eds), Portugal: 30 anos
de democracia, 19742004 (Porto: Editora da Universidade do Porto, 2006), pp.3770; Tom Gallagher,
Portugal: the Marginalization of the Extreme Right, in Paul Hainsworth (ed.), The Extreme Right in
Europe and USA (London: Pinter, 1992), pp.22245.
18
Jos Pedro Zquete, Portugal: a New Look at the Extreme Right, Representation, 43/3 (2007),
pp.17998.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

50 R. Marchi
to present a player which, thanks to doctrinal innovation and the new fissures it
provoked, represented, in our view, the turning point in the dynamics of
Portuguese radical right movements and the basis for a new nationalist radicalism
in Portugal. With the groupuscular model of part of the new extreme ring-wing as
background,
19
the evaluation of MAN enables us to test, to some extent, the
validity of the model regarding right-wing extremism in Portugal.
The Radical Right in Portuguese Democracy: An Historical Excursus
Throughout Portugals democratic transition until the beginning of the 1980s,
Portuguese radical right movements, coming from the former Salazar regime,
denoted a manifest incapacity to lay down the foundations of a consistent project
granting them a political space in the young Portuguese democracy. The more
solid attempts, such as those carried out by the Partido do Progresso/Movimento
Federalista Portugus [Progress Party/Portuguese Federalist Movement] and by
the Movimento de Aco Portuguesa [Movement for Portuguese Action] were
brushed away in just a few months by the clashes between military and civilian
factions just after 25 April 1974.
The clandestine experiments carried out between 1975 and 1976 by organisa-
tions such as the Movimento Democrtico de Libertao de Portugal [Democratic
Movement for the Liberation of Portugal] and Exrcito de Libertao de Portugal
[Liberation Army of Portugal] proved equally unfeasible. Faced with the lack of
consistency of the project and of the organisation, part of its top leaders (who
came from the university student elites of the 1960s and 1970s) decided to join the
centre-right parties: Partido Popular Democrtico [PPD, Democratic Popular
Party] and Centro Democrtico Social [CDS, Social Democratic Party], actively
contributing to the success of the anti-socialist coalition Aliana Democrtica
[Democratic Alliance]. The other group opted for cultural warfare in 1980 and
founded the publication Futuro Presente, committed to ideological reviewing,
20
and introducing in Portugal both right-wing Gramcism of the French Nouvelle
Droite (Alain de Benoist) and, since 198283, the realism of the new Anglo-Saxon
Right (Thatcher and Reagan).
Only a small fringe of orthodox salazarism insisted on conquering a new
autonomous electoral space, Partido da Democracia Crist [PDC, Christian
Democratic Party] and Movimento Independente para a Reconstruo Nacional
[MIRN, Independent Movement for National Reconstruction], collapsing
permanently at the legislative elections of October 1980 with the electoral defeat
(0.4%) of the coalition Direita Unida [United Right].
Accordingly, the return of radical militants from clandestinity, the end of the
decolonisation process and the inability to ride the wave of Portuguese returning
from the colonies marked the end of an epoch in the political culture of the
Portuguese radical right,
21
and its definitive marginalisation and survival in
irrelevant grouplets who denoted scarce innovative capacity in strategic and
ideological terms.
19
Roger Grifn, Fascisms new faces (and new facelessness) in the post-fascist epoch, in Roger Grif-
n, Werner Loh, Andreas Umland (eds), Fascism Past and Present, West and East An International Debate
on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right (Studgard: Verlag, 2006), pp.2967.
20
Pinto (note 17, 1995), p.183.
21
Pinto (note 17, 2006), p.58.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 51
The drainage of the radical wing throughout the 1980s provoked a political and
cultural fracture at the level of political parties, later mended by the creation, in
2000, of Partido Nacional Renovador [PNR, Renovation National Party]. In effect,
the PNR presented some new features regarding the traditional extreme right and
was, comparatively, an interesting political player within the emerging new post-
industrial extreme right.
22
The chronological scattering in the analysis of the Portuguese radical right
accounts for the gap, in Portugal, between two distinct types of extreme right.
This makes the characterisation of the evolution of this political family uncertain.
The resolution of this fracture rests in the troubles of the Portuguese Radical
Right of the mid 1980s and, particularly, in the emergence of MAN within the
fragmented and feeble hub of radical nationalism. In this period, due to the
absence of a strong party of reference, a new generation of militants appeared in
Portugal, who shared a radical subculture that was distant from the traditional
ideological vectors of Portuguese ultra-nationalism, and whose new political
language brought the topic extreme right to the top of the agenda of both the
media and the judicial power. MANs experience lies in the fact that it gave a new
push to ultra-nationalist militancy and also in that it brought the radical and
differential discourse of the most extreme European-American right-wing
movements to the political culture of Portuguese radicalism. This discourse,
rewritten and modernised at the turn of the millennium, was at the basis of the
creation of PNR, after causing not only a generational fracture, but a mostly
doctrinal break regarding the multi-racial vocabulary of the historical Portuguese
radical nationalism, still associated with the myth of empire.
The Political Development of MAN
In 1985, a group of youths from Amadora, a housing development on the
outskirts of Lisbon, founded a nationalist cultural association. This group was led
by Jos Lus Paulo Henriques, who had been associated with nationalism since
the beginning of the decade and was a leading member of the Juventude Centrista
[Centrist Youth] in Amadora.
23
However, his dissatisfaction with the moderation
of the CDS, his admiration for the values promoted by the previous regime and
his ultra-nationalist tendencies led him to leave the party and, in January 1984,
launch the radical magazine Vanguarda Nacional [National Vanguard], whose
first issue clearly showed the groups interest in the most extreme right-wing
groups on the international scene. Vanguarda Nacional represented the first step
on a path that was to lead this small group to formally establish itself as the
Associao Cultural Aco Nacional [National Action Cultural Association] on 25
June 1985, an organisation whose stated aims were to defend and promote
national, cultural, ethical, ethnic and spiritual values, and which was to serve as
the more political formal structure of MAN.
24
MANs political development can be separated into three distinct phases.
During its first three years, from 1985 to 1987, it limited itself to isolated public
activities that included handing out leaflets and putting up posters in and around
Amadora. In January 1986 the group published its first official newspaper, Aco
22
Zquete (note 18), p.180.
23
The youth wing of the party Centro Democrtico Social.
24
Tribunal Constitucional, Acrdo n17/94 de 18/01/94, Polis 2 (1995), pp.10349.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

52 R. Marchi
[Action]. However, it was during the period 19881990 that MAN came to the
attention of the media and became the most famous radical-right wing movement
of the 1980s. During these years, it experienced both an increase in membership
and a progressive radicalisation of its political discourse. This was largely due to
the decision of dozens of working and middle-class youths from the capital and
from the Centre and North of the country, and of groups of skinheads, mainly
from Lisbons industrial belt, to join the movement.
Skinheads first appeared in Portugal at the beginning of the 1980s, and from 1985
began to spread through secondary schools on the outskirts of the countrys larger
towns and cities. One of the first and most enduring skinhead groups was estab-
lished in Almada on the south bank of the River Tagus, opposite Lisbon. By 1986,
many of this groups leaders had joined MAN. With so many skinheads joining the
movement, MAN was encouraged to adopt an ethno-nationalist and racist iden-
tity. In fact, from the beginning MAN was a supporter of a critical ethno-national-
ism with respect to the presence of African and Asian communities in Portuguese
territory. However, its ethno-nationalism had always been subordinated to its
critique of the democratic political classes, to left-wing terrorism (particularly that
of the FP-25
25
) and the supposed national disintegration of the post-25 April era.
The spread of skinhead fashion among Portuguese youth convinced MANs
leader of the convenience of accommodating these potential activists, and led him
to create a structure capable of attracting them, politicising them and converting
them into political activists. The convergence of ideas between the skinhead
movement and MAN became explicit with the publication of the first issue of
Combate Branco [White Combat] in July 1987 a fanzine, whose principal goal
was the organization of a Portuguese skinhead movement
26
and with the
publication in the same year of the neo-Nazi fanzine, Vento do Norte [North
Wind], whose front page invited skinheads to daub slogans opposing democracy
and immigration, the Celtic cross and the acronym MAN on walls. MAN also
opened Acos pages to the skinhead subculture
27
by including two articles by
Portuguese radical right veteran Rodrigo Emlio exalting the skinhead world.
28
The ever-increasing intensity of skinhead activism and its close collaboration
with MAN piqued the interest of the Portuguese media, which presented an
image of MAN as the central co-ordinating body of the neo-Nazi groups that
spread throughout the country. However, the truth was that MAN never made
any concerted effort to co-ordinate skinhead activity, nor did the skinheads seek
to join the political movement en masse. As happens in all urban sub-cultures,
skinheads almost immediately proved too diverse a group to be incorporated into
any particular organised political structure. The first groups of Portuguese skin-
heads made no attempt to form an organisation, despite the appeals of Combate
Branco, and remained in their isolated small groups of neighbourhood and school
friends, without any party political goals other than those that related to a shared
youth culture, taste in music and clothes, and slogans. However, there can be no
doubt that the decision by some of the more influential figures of the Portuguese
skinhead movement to join MAN resulted in the movement accentuating its
25
Foras Populares25 de Abril [25 April Popular Forces].
26
Editorial, Combate Branco, no. 1, July (1987), p.1
27
Carlos Lima, A msica nacionalista, Aco 4, June (1988), p.4.
28
Rodrigo Emlio, Elogio da Raa, Aco 4, June (1988), p.3; Rodrigo Emlio, Skinfellow(s), Aco 5
(1989), p.2.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 53
ethnic-nationalist and racist discourse, bringing it increasingly closer to foreign,
especially Anglo-Saxon, groups of the extreme right. In fact, from its very begin-
ning the Portuguese skinhead scene was influenced by the style and thematic of
European groups connected with ultra-nationalist musical production, such as
the French Batskin, Evil Skins, Legion 88 and the British Skrewdriver.
However, there were no actual contacts with the newly formed international
skinhead networks, the British Blood & Honour and the North American
Hammerskin Nation, who only became known in Portugal in the 1990s.
29
On the other hand, the prominence given by the media to the political facets of
the skinhead movement and of its militant capabilities (including violence), partic-
ularly in Lisbon and Oporto, led to a wave of emulation that in 1989 translated into
increasing numbers of teenagers becoming skinheads and joining MAN.
MANs leaders believed they could exploit both the medias attention and the
growing skinhead phenomenon to the benefit of their movement. However, their
attempt to spread the movement out from Lisbon and throughout the country
immediately faced three great challenges. The first of these was Henriques exces-
sive centralism and inability to delegate. The lack of autonomy of the more active
militants in the capital as well as of those responsible for provincial groups
resulted in serious misunderstandings amongst the members seeking to take the
movements expansion forward. Secondly, MANs commitment to skinhead
militancy was instantly viewed by the neo-Nazis as an improper attempt to control
their spontaneous radicalism and independence. This disagreement first emerged
in the north at a dinner MAN organised with skinhead groups on 1 December
1989, which was intended as the first stage of collaboration but ended in riotous
political disagreement and a street brawl. Thirdly, the increasingly violent nature
of some skinhead groups, which the media regularly attributed to MANs activi-
ties, served to discredit a movement that had no adequate response. The situation
deteriorated following a scuffle between a group of skinheads and some left-wing
youths in front of the offices of the Partido Socialista Revolucionrio [PSR, Socialist
Revolutionary Party] on 28 October 1989, which resulted in one of the PSRs lead-
ers being stabbed to death. The seriousness of this event caused a reaction that
extended beyond the press. The indignation felt by all Portuguese political parties,
the calls for vigilance on the part of many civic associations and trade unions and,
above all, the publication of reports by the PSR
30
denouncing the activity of the
ultra-right, led the legal authorities to launch an investigation into MAN, a move-
ment considered to be the legal face of the skinhead movement.
The media campaign demonising the extreme right for the increase in skinhead
violence, and the realisation by MANs leaders that it was impossible to control
the ultras, led to distancing from the neo-Nazis. To this end, the publication of the
newspaper Ofensiva [Offensive] in March 1990 as an independent initiative,
although linked to MAN, was a desperate attempt to safeguard the movements
non-skinhead members. The editorial printed in the first edition of this publica-
tion stressed the obligation of all MANs members to condemn all forms of
29
The Portuguese skinhead milieu only ofcially joined the international networks recently, with the
Portuguese chapter of Hammerskin Nation opening on 20 November 2001. The operation was led by
the second and third generation of Portuguese skinheads, whose only connection with the history of
the rst skin wave was through his current leader Mrio Machado.
30
This mobilisation against the extreme right led to the emergence of the organisation SOS-Racismo,
also in Portugal, in 1990.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

54 R. Marchi
behaviour that may be prejudicial to the movement.
31
However, this attempt at
damage control was too little, too late, coming as it did only after a crisis within
MAN had become inevitable. Many of MANs non-skinhead followers began to
leave the organisation, while others caused a schism at the end of 1990 that led to
the formation of the ephemeral Frente de Defensa Nacional [FDN, National
Defence Front], which was founded in protest at Henriques centralism, immobil-
ism and his decision to distance MAN from the skinheads.
Caught between defections, media attacks and legal investigations, Henriques
had little alternative but to accept that his movement, which had been irredeem-
ably compromised, was no longer viable, and decided to close it down in 1991.
However, disbanding the movement did not prevent the Constitutional Court
from pursuing MAN under the terms of the law banning fascist organisations.
The Story of a Political Process
Following the PSR militants murder, in November 1989 the state prosecutor
(PGR, Procurador Geral da Repblica) instructed the Judicial Police (PJ, Polcia
Judiciria) to investigate the world of the radical right with the intention of deter-
mining the size of the skinhead phenomenon in Portugal and to clarify its connec-
tions with MAN. Between December 1989 and April 1990, the PJ intercepted
several telephone conversations between leading members of the radical right and
informed the PGR of both the nature of the skinhead phenomenon in the country
and of MANs organisational structure. Based on its investigation into Henriques,
which began in May 1990, the PJ concluded that between September and Novem-
ber 1990 MAN was going through a phase of membership growth, expansion and
internationalisation. In fact, at the end of 1990 MAN was experiencing a profound
crisis that was the result of a number of internal disagreements. When, in Febru-
ary 1991, the PJ was authorised by the Central Criminal Tribunal [TIC, Tribunal
de Instruo Criminal] to proceed with searches of the homes of MANs leaders,
the movement was already on its knees. The police interrogations that followed
the house searches only told the PJ that MAN had skinhead members; however, it
was unable to establish any formal link between MAN and the skinhead move-
ment, or that MAN had any plans to organise the Portuguese skinhead move-
ment. Moreover, the events that took place at the dinner in Oporto in December
1989 seemed to show that MAN had no desire to be involved with the skinheads.
Despite the results of the police investigation, in July 1991 the PGR requested
that MAN be closed down to the Constitutional Court. Its actions were justified,
based on the following legal regulations:
(a) Article 46, paragraph 4 of the Portuguese constitution: Organizations that
espouse fascist ideologies [] are not permitted.
(b) Law 64/78: Organizations that espouse fascist ideologies are prohibited.
(c) Article 10, Law of the Constitutional Court: The Constitutional Court is
competent to declare [] that an organization is espousing fascist ideolo-
gies and to decree that organizations abolition.
The most serious of the PGRs accusation against MAN was that the latter sought
to create a revolutionary movement that could overthrow the constitutional
31
Editorial, Ofensiva 1 (1990), p.2.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 55
political system with the aim of establishing a nationalist state in Portugal. This
accusation was largely based on MANs doctrinal statements, which could be
discerned from the abundant material seized during the police searches of the
homes of the movements leaders.
During the final four months of 1991 the PGR and the Constitutional Court
concentrated on identifying those legally responsible for MAN, who could then
be tried in a court of law. Questioned by the PGR between January and March
1992, these leaders were finally instructed by the Constitutional Court to begin
the formal process of closing the organisation down in June 1992. This process for
the legal disbandment of MAN began in September 1993 and ended in January
1994 four years after the investigations began, and three years after the
movement had abolished itself.
The Constitutional Courts ruling stated that MAN was, in fact, a political
organisation as defined by law, as it had a leadership structure that controlled a
group of people and had a series of defined goals and a common objective. As for
whether MAN promoted fascist ideals, the Constitutional Court noted that some
of the movements characteristics supported this accusation, with regards to its
ultra-nationalism, its opposition to democracy, and its apologies for historical
fascist personalities and regimes. Despite being unable to prove MAN had an a
priori violent nature, the court argued that the existence of these characteristics,
when taken together and individually, was sufficient to describe MAN as a fascist
organisation. However, for legal and constitutional reasons, the court decided not
to pass sentence on the movement, claiming that any justification for handing
down an abolition order had been rendered moot given that the movement had
already abolished itself. This deferral of the abolition order enabled the Constitu-
tional Court to avoid the sensitive problem of setting a legal precedent concerning
the legitimacy of fascist organisations within a democracy.
The Anatomy of MAN
The police search of the home of MANs leader uncovered its files, which
included detailed information on more than 200 members. Close analysis of this
data ought to have provided the PGR with a more realistic assessment of the
movements capacity for subversion.
32
Structure of MANs Organization
The first observation that can be made of MANs membership base concerns its
numerical consistency: if it is true that the movement experienced a rapid growth
in membership from 1988 to 1990, then it is also true there were frequent defec-
tions which only undermined its stability and prevented the movements
membership from achieving maturity.
33
The rigid compartmentalisation of MAN
32
The data presented here is based on the analysis of 215 les in MANs archives, which have been
selected for the exhaustive nature of the information they contain. Neither this sample nor MANs
archives provide the exact number of the movements sympathisers, a number that would include
those who mixed with party members at school and in the neighbourhoods. However, without doubt
the sample is representative of the movements most radical supporters.
33
The PGR report speaks of the continual ebb and ow of members (Constitutional Court process
364/91, point 194, folio 56).
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

56 R. Marchi
discovered by the investigators existed only in the intentions of its leader, despite
attempts at reorganisation during the two golden years of 19881990.
From the beginning, MAN had two levels to its organisation: the leadership
and the members. At the leadership level, the structure consisted of a president (a
position that was occupied by Henriques for the movements entire lifetime), a
political commission and a secretariat. The political commission, which
comprised the president and five others, was responsible for managing the
movement, its policies and political direction, and for overseeing its territorial,
administrative and financial organisation. The secretariat, in turn, was made up
of the members of the political commission and seven other members who shared
the movements offices. The secretariats main duties were to execute, administer
and finance MANs policies. The members of these three bodies, along with the
movements regional and local representatives, formed the national council,
which was responsible for co-ordinating MANs activities at the national level.
Only the president remained unchanged during the movements lifetime. By
contrast, the political commission was restructured at least three times in 1985,
1988 and 1990. The secretariat does not seem to have been officially established,
despite some of its members being identified. The national council, which according
to the movements rules was to convene four times each year, in fact only met three
times in six years March 1986, May 1989 and June 1990 which indicates the move-
ments weakness at national level. Indeed the movements organisation was far
from complete at the regional level, with only the leaders of the most important
local groups being identified, that is, those individuals who were in direct contact
with the president, but who had no representation in the movements ruling bodies.
The structure at membership level altered over the years. During the early
years of the movements existence (19851987), its members met in action
groups that were involved in basic promotional activities, such as putting up
posters, distributing pamphlets and painting graffiti.
34
The movement sought to
ensure the financial sustainability of its activities through the creation of the self-
financed grupo de apoio militante [militant support group]; however, this group
does not appear to have achieved any significant results. After 1988, the
members organisation was restructured on a four-level pyramid basis. The base
of the pyramid consisted of the amigos do movimento [friends of the movement].
The next level up consisted of the apoiantes do jornal [supporters of the newspa-
per]. The top two levels comprised the candidatos a quadro [candidate members]
and, finally, the quadros polticos [political members], which overlapped the
leadership level structure. This organisation was similar to that used by
Henriques foreign comrades in their organisations.
At the international level, MAN remained in contact with three London-based
organisations the National Front, the British National Party, and the Interna-
tional Third Position and received some financial support from the National-
demokratische Partei Deutschlands [NPD, German National Democratic Party]. It
also collaborated with Spains Tercera Va Solidarista [Solidarist Third Way] and
Frente Sindicalista de Juventud [FSJ, Syndicalist Youth Front] as well as Frances
Troisieme Voie [Third Way].
35
34
Aco 1 (1986), p.4.
35
In September 1987, MAN, FSJ and Troisieme Voie signed the Manifesto to the European Nation. Since
1988 Henriques had attempted to align himself with the European third position groups, creating the
Grupo Terceira Via [Third Way Group] to support MAN.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 57
Age of Members at the Time They Joined MAN
Despite the ebb and flow of members, it is a fact that between 1988 and 1990
MAN registered an increase in its membership, from a few dozen between 1986
and 1987,
36
to more than 140 members between 1988 and 1990, without counting
those sympathisers who surrounded members at school and in the neighbour-
hoods. However, in 1985, at the time of the movements foundation, MANs
operation was based on a small group of friends led by Paulo Henriques. The
1985 members register shows that 29 people joined the movement on 25 June,
giving it a membership of 44. In other words, at the moment of its foundation,
MAN only managed to attract 15 new members: an average that was maintained
over the following two years. This low number of new members was also regis-
tered in the last year of MANs activities in 1991, when only three people joined
the movement. Henriques decision to halt the movements activities to minimise
its legal responsibilities was, without doubt, the main factor in the movements
decline. However, the abrupt disappearance of the movement in the face of rather
minor legal proceedings was symptomatic of its weakness.
In addition to the organisational aspects, the background of the members and
their leaders represents an interesting subject through which to assess the
movements subversive capacities. The age of members whose details were amongst
the files seized by the police ranged from 15 to 65, although there were significant
differences in the number of members in each age group; in fact, the overwhelming
majority of militants (83 per cent) were aged between 15 and 25. Of these 177
members, 139 were aged between 15 and 20 (with a significant number aged 19).
Only 24 of the movements members (11 per cent of the total), were in the 2535
age group, and only eight of them were over 30. In total, only 14 of the movements
members (six per cent) were older than 35. These older members did not represent
a homogeneous group of more mature activists; rather, they were individuals who
had more contact with the leader than they did with the movement, and who shared
the organisations doctrine without having any effective force as members.
This lack of any mature elite capable of guiding the movement is also found in
the study of its leadership, the patterns of which faithfully reflect those found in
the examination of the ordinary members.
37
Of the 25 identified leaders, 17 were
aged between 16 and 21 (with eight of them aged 19) on the day they joined the
movement. Five of the leaders were aged between 21 and 27, and only three were
over 30 and their organisational contribution was marginal. Henriques himself
was 22 when he founded the movement and became its president, and 28 when
he closed it down. Thus, in comparative terms, both the active leaders and
members were generally aged 1721, the number of active individuals in older
age groups being significantly lower.
From a political point of view, the fact that MAN did not meet the political
demands of an elite formed by veterans of the Portuguese Radical Right is
important and contributed greatly towards determining the nature of the move-
ments ideological differences from traditional Lusitanian radical nationalism.
In this respect, the most interesting figure connected to MAN, despite not being
one of the movements leaders, was Rodrigo Emlio Alarco Ribeiro de Melo
36
The rst issue of Aco, published in JanuaryFebruary 1986 announced MAN had ve dozen
members.
37
The complete les of 25 militants with positions of responsibility within the organisation were
selected for the analysis of MANs leadership class.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

58 R. Marchi
(19442004), a prominent veteran and renowned intellectual of the Portuguese
Neo-fascist wing. During the Salazar regime, Rodrigo Emlio was part of the
extreme right-wing organisations which were relatively independent from the
Estado Novo, such as Movimento Jovem Portugal (19611965) and Frente Nacio-
nal Revolucionria (19651956). Author of several poetry books, he wrote copi-
ously for ultra-nationalist publications such as the weekly Agora (19611969) and
Poltica (19691974). In the years of transition to democracy, he was involved in
the foundation of the most radical extreme right-wing movements hostile to the
25 April 1974 revolution, like Movimento de Aco Portuguesa (MAP) and
Exrcito de Libertao de Portugal (ELP). When he returned from clandestinity in
Spain, he continued to intervene in the Portuguese extreme right milieu, support-
ing the doctrinal education of the younger radical generations and defending
them intellectually in their short-lived activities. Rodrigo Emlio certainly
maintained close links with MAN. However, it is not possible to talk of Rodrigo
as being the brains behind a movement whose doctrine seems not to have been
greatly influenced by his intellectual prestige. Rodrigo Emlio on several
occasions demonstrated (particularly on the race question) that his ideology was
moulded by his search for an understanding with his younger comrades.
Occupations of MANS Members
The young age of the majority of MANs members is clearly reflected in their occu-
pations. A total of 53 per cent of the sample that has been analysed were students
and school pupils. This category merits closer attention. Of the total number of
student members, only 14 per cent were at university, with the remaining 86 per
cent being high school pupils. This represents a significant reversal of the histori-
cal trend within the Portuguese Radical Right. The ultra-nationalist organisations
that were active during the 1960s and 1970s were made up largely of university
students, enabling the younger members, aged 1518, to have a cultural and ideo-
logical link with rather more mature political activists. Of the remaining members
(48 per cent of the total), 12 per cent were workmen, nine per cent worked in shops
or cafs, eight per cent were office juniors, seven per cent worked in the public
sector, four per cent were liberal professionals (mainly working in information
technology or as photographers or journalists), three per cent were retail workers,
with the remaining one per cent being soldiers, unemployed or retired.
Focusing the study on the occupations of the movements leaders, we see that,
while students remain the largest single category, with 40 per cent of the total,
they are no longer an absolute majority. Nevertheless, within this group the
proportion of university students rises to 20 per cent. This 13 per cent difference
in the proportion of students who were ordinary members and those who were
leaders is shared between the workman category (16 per cent), public sector
employees (12 per cent), and office workers (12 per cent).
38
Of the leaders, eight
per cent were business people (a category that did not exist amongst the move-
ments base members), eight per cent were liberal professionals (twice the propor-
tion found amongst the ordinary members) and four per cent were retail workers.
The profile of a typical member of the movement, therefore, is of someone with
a low-average education, engaged in generally low qualified employment, with
38
As an ofce worker, the movements president, Paulo Henriques, fell into this category.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 59
the majority being employed by someone else and working in non-managerial
positions.
The Geographical Distribution of MAN
As both the PGR and the Constitutional Court demonstrated, MAN was based in
Amadora, a dormitory town on the northwestern outskirts of Lisbon where all of
the movements founding members lived. In 1986 the movements newspaper
announced the creation of groups in the city of Lisbon, Amadora, Oporto, Castelo
Branco and Queijas.
39
The implantation of MAN at the district level was over-
whelmingly concentrated in Lisbon and Oporto, where 46 and 32 per cent, respec-
tively, of the members lived. Lagging behind were the districts of Braga (six per
cent), Setbal (five per cent), Aveiro and Castelo Branco (three per cent each),
Faro and Viana do Castelo (two per cent each), Coimbra (one per cent) and Angra
do Herosmo, vora, Santarm and Viseu, each with less than one per cent.
If, on the one hand, this distribution confirms the traditional concentration of
Portuguese radical right-wing militancy in the countrys two largest cities, on the
other hand it also presents the peculiarity of Coimbra as being insignificant, when
Coimbra has historically been fertile ground for militant radical nationalism. If
we consider that in Coimbra ultra-nationalist militancy has always been led by
the university elite, this then fits perfectly with the lack of university students
within the movements ranks.
The two most important groups within the movement in the Lisbon district
appeared in Amadora, which had a core of 50 members, and the city of Lisbon,
with more than two dozen members although there were also much smaller
groups, with fewer than 10 members each, in Oeiras, Sintra, Loures, Cascais, and
Odivelas. To those of the capital we must also add the important groups that
existed in the towns on the south bank of the River Tagus in the district of
Setbal, with particular concentration in Almada. The decision of several
individuals from Almada to join the movement between 1986 and 1987, and the
subsequent affiliation in 19881990 of a much larger group, is remarkable for two
reasons: firstly, Almada, which is a traditionally communist sympathising town,
proved to be a source of radical militancy at the end of the 1980s, just as it had
been at the beginning of the 1960s when many of its young residents contributed
considerably to the growth of that eras largest extreme right group, the
Movimento Jovem Portugal [MJP, Young Portugal Movement]; secondly also
just as in the 1960s, when Almadas MJP militants altered the movements social
structure by increasing the number of working-class members within an essen-
tially student group at the end of the 1980s the Almada members were proletar-
ian and sub-proletarian, and, more importantly, they supported the skinhead
sub-culture (of which they represented Portugals most famous group). That is to
say, the affiliation of the south bank skinheads into MAN was the cause of the
movements approximation to the neo-Nazi subculture and was to be one of the
PGRs most powerful accusations against it. In fact, the legal authorities claimed
that the leader of the south bank skinheads had been a member of MAN since
1987 and that he was, in fact, one of the movements leaders.
39
The movements earliest recorded activity was the distribution of leaets at Amadora train station on
22 November 1985, while its activities in Oporto, Castelo Branco and Queijas began in mid-January
1986. See Aco 2 (1986), p.4.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

60 R. Marchi
In the district of Oporto, the areas with most MAN members were the cities of
Oporto, Matosinhos (with more than two dozen members) and Vila Nova de Gaia
(with around a dozen members). There were also small groups, with fewer than
six members each, in Santo Tirso, Gondomar and Lousada.
It is interesting to note that, in the Lisbon district, membership followed a
regular growth pattern (the increase of 19881990 notwithstanding), while in the
district of Oporto there was a peak in 1989 when the number of membership appli-
cations doubled. Almost half of this increase was centred on the Matosinhos group,
which, like Almada, had one of the largest skinhead groups in the country. The
importance of 1989 in the spread of the movement in the north of the country is
also indicated by the dinner Henriques instructed the movements northern lead-
ership to organise in December 1989. The goal of this social event was to find points
of convergence between MAN and the independent skinhead movement. The legal
authorities believed that this dinner proved that MAN was responsible for the
politicisation of the skinheads. However, the dinner was an absolute failure that
only served to undermine the movements spread into northern Portugal. Indeed,
in 1990 there was a sharp decline in the number of membership applications from
this region, at a time when Lisbon was receiving a slight increase in applications.
As for the remaining districts, it is possible to talk only of a group in Braga, in
which about a dozen members were joined by some isolated individuals in
Esposende, Guimares, and Vila Verde. In the district of Faro, there were some
members in Loul, Albufeira, Portimo, and Vila Real de Santo Antnio, while in
the district of Aveiro there were groups in the city of the same name, Espinho and
Castelo de Paiva. Castelo Branco, Fundo and Penamacor had groups, as did
Viana do Castelo and Mono. Finally, there were groups in Coimbra, Angra do
Herosmo, Reguengos de Monsaraz (vora), Rio Maior (Santarm) and Viseu.
In the smaller districts the small number of membership applications was
concentrated in the period 19891990, at a time when MAN was already the
subject of a national media campaign. This raises the prospect that the spread of
the movement into the provinces had been facilitated more by the media attention
than by any strategic plan developed by the movements political leadership.
Evidently, it was not a case of the movements leaders demonstrating any lack of
interest in increasing the movements size; rather it was evidence of a total lack of
ability on their part to pursue this, which, in itself, was caused by the paralysing
centralism of MANs leader.
Ideology
Ethno-nationalist and racist themes were a growing part of MANs political
discourse during its entire existence. In fact, the movements first official
documents, the MAN manifesto, which was published in March 1985, and the 24
programmatic points, published in June that same year, made no explicit reference
to either the phenomenon of immigration or to the racist identity struggle. These two
documents still shared the cultural undertone typical of classical Portuguese nation-
alism. They outlined a programme that defined the people as an organic commu-
nity and the State as the politically organised nation; that stated universal order on
the imperial scale is natural to the nation in which assimilation is not synonymous
with degeneration (MAN programmatic points, point 20); in which liberalism,
capitalism, socialism and communism are instruments of a bourgeois domination
that began with the revolution of 1789; where democracy is the destructive tyranny
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 61
of the political parties; where Soviet and American imperialism are the mortal
enemy of Portugal, operating through African nationalism; and in which the new
man, solidly implanted in tradition against modernity, is the only salvation.
Nevertheless, from the very beginning MANs publications contained some
signs of its future development. In the first edition of its official bulletin, the opening
article addressed the matter of a spiritual race that has to be preserved along with
the state and the nation.
40
In the movements membership application form, which
was reproduced in the journal, several programmatic points of an ethno-nationalist
nature were printed, including: Portugal for the Portuguese, halt immigration,
begin repatriation, jobs for whites first and end overseas aid.
41
In the following
edition of Aco, the movements final break from the tradition of Portuguese
nationalism is clear. One of the articles published in it, Imigrao: o princpio do
fim (Immigration: the beginning of the end) was a war cry that called for the repa-
triation of all African and Asian immigrants as the only way to ensure the survival
of the nation and of the culture and identity of our people: a white European people.
This means keeping pure the Portuguese nations biological body.
42
The article
denounced the miscegenation caused by mass immigration as an ethnic and
cultural deformation that will result in the disappearance of Portugal, since the
mulatto inhabitants of the future can never be called Portuguese.
The evolution of MANs racism was the result of the convergence of two
factors: one sociological, the other political. Sociologically, Portugal during the
1980s was for the first time experiencing a rise in the size of its foreign resident
population, which increased from 50 750 in 1980 to 107 767 a decade later.
43
This
growth was taking place while the native population remained relatively
unchanged at 10 million. While immigration into Portugal was actually amongst
the lowest of any Western European state, its concentration in the greater Lisbon
and Oporto areas was sufficient to secure an audience for the radical rights
alarmist pronouncement, which was also assisted by the existing revanchism of
some white Portuguese against the African nationalism that had been responsible
for the downfall of the empire.
The political factor was mainly concerned with the absence of any representa-
tive of the traditional Portuguese Radical Right capable of containing and
organising MANs members and, particularly, its doctrine at the moment of its
foundation. This absence meant that the movements young members were
politically unprepared for the socio-political changes that were taking place in the
country, and susceptible to the easily absorbed political identities and ideological
discourses of foreign radical right-wing organisations, whose activism was much
more attractive than what traditional Portuguese radicalism could offer. As the
material seized by the PJ clearly shows, MAN maintained links with similar
groups throughout Europe, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world. The publica-
tions produced by these groups, and which were available in the Portuguese
milieu, contained items on the themes of white pride and racial war.
44
It was in
40
Lado a lado contra o inimigo comum, Aco 1 (1986),p.1.
41
Junto-te nossa luta!, Aco 1 (1986), p.1.
42
Imigrao: o princpio do m, Aco 2 (1986), p.1.
43
Servios de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras, available at http://www.sef.pt/portal/v10/PT/aspx/
estatisticas/evolucao.aspx?id_linha=4255&menu_position=4140#0.
44
The bulletin Vanguarda (1984, no. 0, p. 11), produced by Paulo Henriques prior to the creation of MAN,
afliated to the campaign of solidarity for the American neo-Nazi multiple murderer, Frank Spisak.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

62 R. Marchi
these foreign movements that MAN found the political causes that traditional
Portuguese radicalism was unable to provide, either because of the organisational
agonies it was suffering or because of the persistence of a culture of universal
nationalism that was opposed to racist formulations. The absence of this tradition
within the Portuguese Radical Right can be seen in the banality of MANs racist
discourse, which incorporates a superficial adaptation of the immigration theme
and which has no ethno-nationalist ideological subtext. Symptomatic of this is the
fact that the most interesting article on identity published in Ofensiva appeared
only in 1990, and was a translation of a radical right German differentialist text
that condemned the Wests cultural imperialism and the policies of assimilation
that destroyed African identities and which, consequently, supported the right of
each people and of each culture including white Europeans to defend
themselves from this cultural genocide.
45
Equally banal was the anti-Semite discourse which, in opposition to biological
racism, had some tradition, albeit secondary and non-consensual, in the editorial
output of the extreme right since the years of the authoritarian regime.
46
Indeed,
the ultra-right magazines not directly connect with MAN, such as ltimo Reduto
and Jovem Revoluo
47
were the ones responsible for spreading Zionist conspiracy
theories of world domination among the organisations militants and for
distributing revisionist materials produced abroad denying the Holocaust.
An attempt to heal the breach with the old extreme right in a way that would
give MAN a more refined ideological profile was made by the radical right-wing
intellectual Rodrigo Emlio. From the outset, Rodrigo collaborated with MANs
publications as a polemicist and contributed to the ideological development of
some of the movements members without becoming its mentor. His interven-
tions on ethno-nationalist matters appear to have represented his personal
attempt to draw the ideological legacy of the veterans of the Portuguese Radical
Right to the attention of the young radicals of the 1980s. In an article published in
Aco in 1988, Rodrigo Emlio explained how the projection of European Portugal
in the tropics from an imperial perspective was the heart of the youth militancy of
the 1960s generation, and was the cause to which it sacrificed all of its racial
beliefs. However, the events following 25 April 1974 radically altered the cards
that had been dealt: the fall of the empire rendered the struggle for integration
and the myth of a multi-continental and multi-racial Portugal meaningless. The
modern struggle was one of defending the race, its blood and its soil the funda-
mental elements of the Portuguese temperament.
48
These themes are picked up
again in an article in Ofensiva, which Henriques, fearful of legal reprisals, refused
45
Stephanie Schoeman, Os verdadeiros racistas, Ofensiva 1 (1990), p.6.
46
Riccardo Marchi, Folhas ultras (Lisbon: ICS, 2009), pp.14251.
47
ltimo Reduto and Jovem Revoluo are just two of the most successful fanzines in a long series of
short-lived small groups with national-socialist connections that sprouted in Portugal in the 1980s,
such as Mocidade Patritica, Brigadas Portuguesas, Aco Nacional Revolucionria or Resistncia
Fascista. The best organised was, without a doubt, Ordem Nova [New Order], an organisation
founded in 1980 by two veterans, since the 1960s, of Portuguese neo-fascism, Zarco Moniz Ferreira
and Jos Valle de Figueiredo. This organisation became clandestine in 1983 and ended shortly after in
order to avoid judicial persecution. Nova Monarquia (19831991), with its ultra-nationalist monarchic
roots, rather than neo-fascist or neo-Nazi ones, was more consistent, from a chronological view as well
as in terms of militancy. However, none of this radical fringe of the 1980s would ever reach the notori-
ety and scale of MAN.
48
Rodrigo Emlio, Elogio da raa, Aco 4 (1988), p.3.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 63
to allow to be published. In this article, Rodrigo Emlio explained the substantial
differences between the concept of race as held by the traditional Portuguese
Radical Right and that supported by MAN and the skinhead movement. The
former, he says, speaks of:
The Lusitanian race: a countenance of many faces, each with its own
colour, but which all gaze in the same direction all communicating the
same ideals that all have embraced and which all do embrace: the lavish
and prodigious framework of a common frontier.
49
The latters view is like a contraction of this grand concept of a Lusitanian
race that is an emulation of the geographical contraction of the Portuguese
empire, which is now reduced to a merely European territory. This diminution,
caused by the decolonisation demanded by the Carnation Revolution, legitimised
the idea of black power for Africa and also, thus, the principle of white power
for Europe, which became a perfectly legitimate struggle for the ethno-nationalist
extreme right. Moreover, while the sovereignty of European Portugal in Africa
was clearly justifiable as part of a civilising mission, the same cannot be said in
relation to the African presence in Europe, since this does not represent a
civilising mission, but rather the surrender of sovereignty to the Negro Marxists
we left to prosper in the tropics.
50
This explanation of the historical and ideological changes in the Portuguese
Radical Rights racial beliefs from universal nationalism to ethno-nationalism
never managed to create a stable bridge between the old and new extreme right,
despite remaining latent within two generations of militants and their organisa-
tions. The majority of veterans remained contemptuous of MAN, an attitude that
was clearly evident in the statement made by Nuno Rogeiro, who had been leader
of the Movimento Nacionalista [MN, Nationalist Movement] during the 1970s, to
a conservative right-wing newspaper:
Some fringe groups are emerging that confuse socially advanced, politi-
cally non-dogmatic and decidedly anti-racist revolutionary nationalism
with the cretinism of the white supremacist views of Le Pen, Klan and
others. Portuguese nationalists have to understand Portugal was created
by overcoming the race barrier, and not by erecting an artificial one.
51
In some cases, the radical youths came to consider the Portuguese imperial era
as a parenthesis in history that was prejudicial to the Portuguese racial identity,
openly accusing the traditional radical right:
In order to achieve their objectives, these old men are willing to promote
so-called integration, a contemptible word that encompasses within it
the destruction of a people. That is, this empire of Portuguese has only a
name, as it is evident that mixing ten million white Portuguese with 19
million blacks will result in the assassination of the Lusitanian race. The
Lusitanians of that future will be a caricature of their ancestors, the sad
49
Rodrigo Emlio, Em defesa da mocidade nacionalista, Rodrigo Emlios private archive.
50
Idem.
51
Nuno Rogeiro, O Diabo, 6 December 1988.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

64 R. Marchi
product of anti-natural miscegenation. Those who will salute the national
flag will be a hybrid sub-race of Negroes and mulattos who have lost
forever their noble Lusitanian blood and culture. Nothing could suit
international crypto-Judaism more than this destruction of the white
race.
52
As we can see, these are two positions that are difficult to reconcile, despite the
historical explanations for their respective formation that has produced a
dichotomy which remains untreated in the development of the Portuguese
Extreme Right.
Conclusion
The centrality of the 1980s as a changing time in the European Extreme Right,
characterised by the emergence of a new kind of radical movements,
53
found
some parallel in Portugal. Whereas it is true that during that decade no parties
that may be placed in the dichotomy advanced by Ignazi between the old and the
new extreme right appeared, nevertheless, it was over the last 20 years of the past
century that profound changes in the Portuguese radical nationalism occurred.
Thus, MAN accounts for the fracture whose historical parable establishes a
before and an afterwards. In fact, through MAN, a new type of political
militant arises, whose adhesion to the extreme right is caused by the social-
economic and social-political changes in contemporary Portugal. In this sense, the
Portuguese movement was hybrid: at national level it represented a novelty
compared with the Portuguese traditional Radical Right. Conversely, in terms of
international comparison, it cannot be included in the category of the new
extreme right movements and is chronologically out of step because it
perpetuated a neo-fascist identity typical of the old extreme right.
54
Within the category of the old European Extreme Right, MAN did not offer
major innovation, from an organisational or doctrinal perspective. The movement
did not even participate in the attempts for cultural renovation that some
European groups pursued from 1970 onwards, adopting New Left topics, ranging
from the Latin American third way to Russian national-bolshevism.
55
On the
contrary, it became involved in the phenomenon, initiated in 1945, of Americani-
sation of some European Extreme Right, impermeable to the topics of white
supremacy and racial struggle typical of North-American milieus.
56
Particularly
in the 1980s and 1990s, these topics assumed a central role in the ideas of
extremist grouplets, intertwining with youth urban subcultures like that of the
Skinhead movement. The old chauvinist nationalism was thus superseded by a
broader vision of belonging to the common white race, committed to a racial war
against non-white races and international Zionism. This conspiracy theory
52
Combate racial, manuscript document, TC 364/91, appendix 8, folio 210.
53
Piero Ignazi, Extreme Right Party in Western Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p.2.
54
Piero Ignazi, The Silent Counter-revolution. Hypotheses on the Emergence of Extreme Right-wing
Parties in Europe, European Journal of Political Research 22/12 (1992).
55
Jeffrey M. Bale, Fascism and Neo-fascism: Ideology and Groupuscularity, in Roger Grifn,
Werner Loh, Andreas Umland (eds), Fascism Past and Present, West and East an International Debate on
Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right (Studgard: Verlag, 2006), p.82.
56
Jeffrey Kaplan and Leonard Weinberg, The Emergence of a Euro-American Radical Right (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998), p.194.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

The National Action Movement (1985-1991) 65
translated into a political agenda of white resistance that contrasted with low
birth rates, abortion, immigration, mixed-blood marriages and positive discrimi-
nation policies for the minorities.
57
Additionally, it enhanced Christian identity
and equally a few pagan roots of the West threatened by Islamism, in a religious
revivalism that had played quite a secondary role in the discourse of the radical
right in former decades.
All of these themes of a new groupuscular extreme right are found in the
propaganda of MAN, alongside the classics of the old European Extreme Right:
anti-egalitarianism, anti-pluralism, anti-parliamentarianism and a stance against
the system.
58
The anti-capitalism and anti-liberal discourse of the movement, as well as the
atonement of authoritarian regimes of fascist inspiration, made MAN definitively
incompatible with the category represented by the new extreme right, which
emerged in the transition from post-industrial economies with a neoliberal politi-
cal agenda.
59
In this sense, MAN belonged to the small minority of movements
with a volkisch socialism identity, which privileged economic nationalism and
the central role of the State, away from the successes of the post-industrial
extreme right.
60
Despite this, MANs radical opposition to immigration and
assimilation policies constitutes something new in the slogans of the traditional
Portuguese Radical Right, linked to the myth of the multi-racial and multi-
continental empire.
The break with the classic radical right is not only ideological but also sociolog-
ical. If the scarce territorial presence of MAN is a common feature of movements
and parties of the classic extreme right (as well as of the party representing the
Portuguese Extreme Right in the twenty-first century: PNR), the movement
reveals, in contrast, a cultural paucity and a working class element in terms of
followers in line with recent developments of right-wing extremism.
61
The nuclei of the movement were fed mostly by mediumlow class youth from
the peripheries of cities, students or people from non-qualified professions,
whereas militants from the traditional radical right came mostly from the
mediumhigh bourgeoisie, drawn from university students, the liberal
professions or the civil service.
If from an ideological viewpoint MAN reproduced the model of the groupus-
cular radical right, in structural terms it denoted both affinities and differences
with Griffins rhizome model. Indeed, MAN did not show willingness to contrib-
ute to the development of a rhizome-type structure, to which autonomous entities
converge to form a flexible and agile network.
62
Quite the opposite, its leaders
obsession with hierarchy and centralisation of the group produced stiffness,
immobility, fracturing conflicts and, mostly, vulnerability to the repression
perpetrated by the regime. However, if we see MAN as an autonomous cell, we
realise that, in fact, its self-dissolution did not have any consequence on the (more
57
Hans-Georg Betz, The Growing Threat of the Radical Right, in Peter H. Merkl and Leonard
Weinberg (eds), Right-wing Extremism in the Twenty-rst Century (London: Routledge, 2003), p.82.
58
Ignazi (note 54), p.146.
59
Herbert Kitschelt, The Radical Right in Western Europe. (Michigan, MI: University of Michigan Press,
1995), pp.23.
60
Betz (note 58), p.81.
61
Ignazi (note 54), p.155.
62
Grifn (note 1).
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

66 R. Marchi
or less formal) networks it was part of during its short existence, both at national
and international levels. Thus, MAN is totally coherent with Griffins model in its
exogenous dimension, but diverges from it in key aspects of its endogenous
dimension.
From a doctrinal viewpoint, MAN accommodated some of the Portuguese
classic extreme right slogans: ultra-nationalism, anti-communism, disdain for the
democratic system (identified as particracy), Euro-scepticism and the idea of
crisis in the West. To this heritage, MAN added all the directives of the old
European Extreme Right, which had never found a place in Portugal: marked
ethnic-nationalism, the enhancement of racial and cultural homogeneity, the
mysticism of the blunt und boden, social Darwinism in inter-racial relations, and
the Law and Order proclamations.
63
Militants raised in the ranks of MAN and who remained active following the
dissolution of the movement brought all these innovations with them, translating
them, when of the founding of the Partido Nacional Renovador into a political
language that was new in Portugal. Although MAN supplied PNR with quite a
number of leaders, the party cannot be seen as a mere photocopy of MAN, in
party form.
64
Its identity brings it closer to the parties Herbert Kistchelt calls
welfare-chauvinist, due to its strong nationalism slant, cultural xenophobia,
defence of the welfare-state and rejection of neo-liberal systems. Its political
proposal no longer has the flavour of extremism devoid of any compromise with
the fringes. Even when opposing immigration policies, PNR does not totally reject
the assimilation hypotheses that characterise the more institutionalised parties
of the European Extreme Right.
65
However, it concurrently keeps traces of the
fascist subculture typical of MAN,
66
which weakens its image and political
proposal among potential voters.
67
The set of differences and similarities with the Portuguese extreme right
movements of the transition period and of the new millennium means the MAN
can definitively be regarded as the bridge in the historical dynamics of radical
nationalism in contemporary Portugal.
Notes on Contributor
Riccardo Marchi is a post-doctoral fellow at the Instituto de Cincias Sociais of
University of Lisbon. His research interests pertain to the comparative perspec-
tives on neo-fascist movements and radical right parties in Western Europe,
mainly in Italy, Portugal and Spain. He is the author of published two books,
Folhas Ultras and Imprio, Nao, Revoluo, both published in Portugal.
63
Pascal Perinneau, Les croiss de la socit ferme : lEurope des extrmes droites (La Tour-dAigues:
ditions de lAube, 2001).
64
A few longstanding Salazar supporters from Aliana Nacional and militant of the national revolution-
ary wing of the 1960s and the 1970s and of the period of transition to democracy, whose political
culture was slightly distinct from the one shared by MANs activists, also contributed to the founda-
tion of the PNR.
65
Betz (note 58), p.88.
66
Zquete (note 18), p.187.
67
Roger Karapin, Radical-Right and Neo-Fascist Political Parties in Western Europe, Comparative
Politics, 30/2 (1998), pp.219 and 225.
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
b
-
o
n
:

B
i
b
l
i
o
t
e
c
a

d
o

c
o
n
h
e
c
i
m
e
n
t
o

o
n
l
i
n
e

U
L
]

a
t

0
6
:
5
6

2
6

J
u
n
e

2
0
1
4

You might also like